Now THAT’S a good bridesmaid!The middle school locker room has left many a lasting imprint on my mind, most shudder-inducing, but there is one I still giggle about. A girl, NotHerRealName, refused to wear deodorant, claiming that her sweat didn’t stink. Oh sure the rest of us smelled like damp dog after an hour of doing pushups on the freshly manured football field (true story) but while she glistened with the rest of us hormonally exploding girls, she didn’t think she smelled like the rest of us. Because – in her words – “I can’t smell myself.” All I can think is she must have been absent the day we got to watch My Body and Me in health class.
I never suffered under the same delusion. I knew I stank then and I know I stink now!
Confession: I throw out a lot of perfectly good workout clothing. It’s not that I’m trying to be wasteful but – and I may have mentioned this one or two hundred times – I sweat like a dude. So while my cute definitely non-dude-like tank top may still look decent, if I’ve had it for more than a few months it has probably accumulated the dreaded workout stench. Once it has passed the point of no return, meaning there isn’t a laundry detergent out there that can touch it, I just have to chuck it. I can’t in good conscience donate something that smells like swack. I recently had to throw out my most favorite Adidas workout capris (seriously – best workout pants ever; I’m in mourning) because of the stank. Although I have to say the worst offender are my sports bras. The best moment of my workout is when the Gym Buddies and I all sit down to stretch and I lean forward to touch my toes, causing my bra to shoot a little puff of sweaty air up into my face. Never mind a heart rate monitor, I can tell exactly how hard I worked out by how much I offend myself in that moment.
Enter StinkAtNothing.com – this site is giving away free workout shirts treated with some new substance called Agion Active that they swear makes it so your sweat doesn’t stink. They aren’t asking you to do anything except test it out – just go to their site, give them your info and they’ll send you a free shirt. Now, I haven’t seen these shirts so they might be as ugly as sin (or more likely have AGION ACTIVE!! stamped in 300 places all over them) but it’s free and anything that claims to make my sweat not stink has my attention. After you try out the free shirt, if you tell them about your experience with it you’ll be entered into a contest to win an outdoor adventure trip for two.
You already know how much I love being a guinea pig; here’s your chance to be one too! Go get you a free shirt!
Can you smell yourself when you sweat? Anyone else have a funny middle school locker room story?
And… the winner of the 50$ gift card to Dick’s Sporting Goods is: Megan who wrote “While my girliness came along much later in life, I LOVE my running skirt and think I might NEED the capri version. My poor mother had 4 boys and me, and all I wanted to wear were my brother’s hand-me downs (including some sweet tube socks). ” E-mail me your info and I’ll hook you up!
thanks for the linky love name drops on this one, Charlotte!
and i am all over our email convo, sending some emails out later…not sure why i havent done it sooner!
xoxo
Have you tried adding the febreeze to the wash with your workout gear. They sell something specifically for laundry.
Char, the reason a lot of workout clothes stink is because the wicking fibers that trap sweat also trap the sweat smell. There's a detergent called "Win" that I have tried that is formulated especially for athletic clothes and it seriously helps (although does not completely eradicate) the smell.
http://www.windetergent.com/
I am not a rep, by the way, just someone with gross smelly clothes 🙂
Funnily enough, due to an episode of 'Cougartown' (favorite show) I decided to start waxing my armpits again instead of shaving. Right now I'm sporting about 5 days of growth and it is NOT pretty. I'm definitely going to click the link and try out the new shirt. Thanks for the heads up!
You are so funny! I'm afraid my memories of middle school locker rooms involve watching more mature students beat each other up! At the time, I had no idea that high school would be even more violent. Such is the life growing up[ in a cosmopolitan big city 🙁
Tide has a new "Sport" detergent and Febreeze has a model specifically for workout stuff. I haven't tried either because if detergent costs more than $5, I don't buy it.
Thankfully, it takes a few workouts between washings for my workout clothes to become rank (wish is great since I have a total of 2 outfits until I get back to my pre-pregnancy size.) The husband on the other hand… O. M. G. He has been wearing the same two shirts that they issued him in boot camp for the past year and a half. I finally had to hide them so he would buy more shirts. Of course, he still stinks so much, I can't stand to do P90X with him. Hopefully, those newfangled shirts work!
I barely sweat at all. When I was young, the doctor told my mother to watch out for heat stroke because when I was really active I’d get red splotches on my face. He said it was because I wasn’t sweating enough, it was a sign of my body trying to cool me down. Really weird but to this day I don’t sweat enough to even mildly stink after a workout. Unless I do Bikram yoga. And then I’m drenched.
I have great luck tossing stank wowrkout gear in the washer with double detergent and about 1/2 c of washing soda, agitate for a minute, then let soak for an hour or so before running the rest of the cycle and double-rinsing. I, like you, can destroy the freshness of a brand new shirt, never to not stank again.
And funny highschool locker room story: We had a girl who never, ever adjusted her girls. She'd just wrap a bra around herself, hook it, and toss a shirt on. Sometimes the girls were near the cups, but usually one or the other was twisted, under the strap, or half-hanging out, and she never once left with them both properly sitting in the cups. I can't imagine how she was comfortable – those were at least Ds!
i rarely throw out workout clothes. only if they're really ripped or something. and i'm sure that some of them, no matter how much detergent i use, will never not smell hahah
I hope they pick me- I live in New Orleans and running in the summer is a sweaty, stinky matter. Thanks for the link!
Yay, Megan!
I'm gonna get one of those shirts for my Hubby. He's training for the physical test for the firefighters academy: he has to run (i forget how many) miles with a 50-lb weighted vest, then go up and down stairs for 3 minutes straight wearing 75 pounds, and some other stuff (yeah, I'm a real detail-oriented gal, lol!) and he has to do it all in 10 minutes. So he's training HARD. (And, of course, I don't need a shirt like that! I smell like roses after MY workout! Yeah, and I look EXACTLY like Cindy Crawford, too!)
My middle-school gym memory is that they never gave us time to shower, so we had to walk around all sweaty and gross for the rest of the day.
Adding washing soda or bicarbonate of soda to the washing machine definitely helps. Some brands never don't stink though (Decathlon & Nike for me)! As for my husband's socks… *retch*
LizCW
For my spandex and polyester blends I use Clorox bleach. The is the only thing that works for them. And it doesn't change the color at all. For my cotton t and tanks(which I only have about 4) I try to wash immediately and use 1 cup baking soda. i love baking soda!!
Middle school memory? besides the old gym that we were convinced was haunted and contained bloody body parts….it was the use of spray deodorant. You were the coolest if you could spray yourself-not just the pits-but your whole outfit with that stuff!
Mary Kate
Have you tried vinegar & borax (along with detergent)? It seems to work for us for both sweat & cat pee.
Have you tried vinegar & borax (along with detergent)? It seems to work for us for both sweat & cat pee.
Have you tried vinegar & borax (along with detergent)? It seems to work for us for both sweat & cat pee.
First, Happy St. Patricks Day! If that tshirt works as well as they say they should make it into socks. After a full day of volleyball my daughters sock and kneepads reek! I have one daughter that hardly ever breaks a sweat – she played volleyball for 5 straight hours on Sunday (seriously, game after game after game) and was hardly moist. My other one is drenched after warmups. Maybe I will have her try the tshirt out!
For middle school gym class, the only class I ever got a D in – they deducted points for not being properly dressed and I would not change my socks so I lost a point every day. Not sure why I thought that was unnecessary but I did and I took a stand – straight As in all my academic classes and a D in gym – my father was not amused. My foundest memory though was watching all the 'cool girls' lying on the benches to try to zip up their jordache jeans.
I know you don't want to see my workout clothes since they are so old.. sorry Charlotte! I am headed over for that free shirt! 🙂
I stink to high heaven when I work out. EEEWWW!!!!
My washed workout clothes never smell unpleasant though, but my light-coloured tops and bras can get very discoloured (sorry if that's TMI). I just soak them in nappy soaker.
Kara's Stinky Laundry Tip: Use vinegar as your fabric softener. At first I was afraid the clothes would smell like vinegar but they don't. But it seems to negate stank quite well.
Yup, white vinegar and I can't remember the other one right this second and it's killing me – but the two of those together are enough to get your clothes clean and remove smell. I used it when my cat was going through a phase and used my clothes basket as a litter box.
I remembered!! It's vinegar and ammonia.